EXHIBITION: Alain C.J. de Lotbinière and Hans Matschukat, “TRAVELS IN HOLY RUSSIA WITH TEMPLE GALLERY”, RUSSIAN HOUSE OF SCIENCE AND CULTURE, 19 – 26 MAY

This unusual exhibition is organised by the Temple gallery. It features works of two gifted photographers, Alain C.J. de Lotbinière and Hans Matschukat, who travelled to Russia with a well-known British collector of icons and founder of the Temple gallery Richard Temple. This exhibition also remarkably demonstrates how an Englishman/ or any Westerner can have such a passion for medieval Russian culture and spirituality.

Alain C.J. de Lotbinière is a practicing neurosurgeon who lives in Connecticut, USA. The son of a Canadian diplomat his education was formed in several European countries: Holland, France, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. His ancestor, Pierre Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, acquired one of the first daguerreotype cameras and set off to the Middle East in 1839 to make photographic records of the ancient monuments in Greece, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. The photographs selected for this exhibition were taken with a Leica Monochrom digital camera and printed by Digital Silver Printing in Boston, Massachusetts.

Hans Matschukat is a professional photographer. This is how he describes his professional approach: “I have held cameras, film or digital, in my hands for almost 50 years. Everything from a $5 Kodak Brownie to a $5,000 Leica or Linhof. In each case, I always attempted to capture a moment that spoke to me in some way. 10’s of thousands of images later, I still anticipate the reviewing of my efforts. Back in the days of film, it took hours or even days to get that chance. Now I can review seconds later, but the thrill of being able to look at a moment in time has never been diminished because of technology”.